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Grammar and semantics: systemic organization (LING 319)

This course offers an overview of the systemic organization 'behind' the structural interpretation of the grammar as it is presented in LING 211. The course models grammar and semantics as meaning potential, using system networks, and it explores how this meaning potential is instantiated in discourse. The probability of instantiation of different options within the potential is discussed, linking the description of meaning potential to corpus-based investigations.

Convenor: Christian Matthiessen

Textbooks:

Outline, week by week:

  1. Axial shift -Paradigmatic organization
    [Review IFG Introduction + Chapters 1 & 2 LexCart: Sections 1.1 & 1.2.1]
  2. Systems of content (lexicogrammar & semantics) by metafunction: textual systems:
    THEME; progression in unfolding of text (logogenetic profile); instantial profile
    [LexCart: Section 1.2.2 & (textual:) Chapter 6; Review IFG Ch. 3]
  3. textual systems: CONJUNCTION
    [Review IFG Ch. 9, Section 9.4]
  4. interpersonal systems: MOOD; interactant profiles (interpersonal:)
    [LexCart Chapter 5; Review IFG Ch 4]
  5. interpersonal systems: SPEECH FUNCTION, APPRAISAL
  6. experiential systems: TRANSITIVITY; modelling a domain of "knowledge" (experiential:)
    [LexCart Chapter 4; Review IFG Ch 5]
  7. ideational systems: ideational semantics and grammatical metaphor
  8. experiential systems (from grammar to lexis: increase in delicacy)
    [LexCart Section 2.4.4 + Sections in Ch. 4 headed "Towards material lexis" etc..]
  9. logical systems: PROJECTION & EXPANSION; modes of order in system and text
    [LexCart Chapter 3; Review IFG Ch. 7]
  10. RHETORICAL RESOURCES
  11. Systems of expression: phonological systems, TONE & TONICITY; fractal organization
    [IFG Ch. 8; LexCart Section 5.1.3.]
  12. Cline of instantiation; register, registerial profiles
  13. Semogenesis; using system network to track the development of meaning.

Last updated: 02/10/03